"THE POKER GAME" GAME

We were sitting in my living room playing TiVO catch-up when Monte came in. It’s true that Cindy and I watch way too much television. I enjoy all of the detective shows, mostly to pick them apart, and I’ve hooked her too. But on weeks when I have a hot case all our favorites end up on the TiVO to be digested marathon-style on Saturday. Monte often joins us, and he’s developing quite the brain for mysteries.

While he was watching a fresh bag of popcorn in the microwave, Cindy and I also started a new game we came up with. It grew out of our ideas about out favorite shows crossing over, and seems to have taken on a life of its own. “Abby and Cloe and Garcia, of course,” I said, “but who else?” “And Marshall,” Cindy said, warming to the topic. “But we’re still short a player.” “What are you guys talking about?” Monte asked, plopping onto the giant pillow Cindy bought me. It sits in front of the sofa and serves as extra seating. Monte never sat on the couch when we were both there. “It’s a poker game,” Cindy explained, pausing the recorded showing of Alias. “People only play poker with people they have something in common with, and we’re deciding who would be playing together.” “Cindy thinks that Abby Sciuto on NCIS would invite Cloe O’Brien from 24 to a game to get her to loosen up a bit. Cloe’s wound a little too tight. They’re both kind of geeks, but the action starts could never find the bad guys, let alone beat them, without Abby and Cloe. So I figure they’d also invite Garcia from Criminal Minds since she’s the same kind of character. And I added Marshall Flinkman from Alias who is the backup geek on that show. But then we were stuck for a fifth player who fit in with that crowd.” Cindy hit play, and we started to get back into the show. Less than a minute later, after he scooped out a big handful of popcorn and handed me the bowl, Monte said, “Cloe.” “We said Cloe,” I reminded him. “No, not bitchy Cloe. Cutie Cloe. Cloe Sullivan from Smallville.” Cindy let the show roll right through a commercial and I leaned over to give Monte a high-five. “You hit it buddy, she’s the perfect fit with that group.” “He’s good at this,” Cindy said, popping a kernel into her mouth. She always eats popcorn one piece at a time.

“Maybe he can complete the killer girls table.” “Who you got?” Monte asked, leaning back against the sofa. “Well, we figure Sydney Bristoe – Alias again, gets invited to the regular poker game hosted by Emma Peale from the old Avengers show. At this point, Mrs. Peale is kind of a mother figure to her and some others.” “I threw in that Sydney would drop her baby off at the same child care place as The Bride.” Monte was blank for a second, but then lit up. “Oh, yeah, the girl from the Kill Bill movies.” “Right,” Cindy said. “And they’d meet up with La Femme Nikita at the game. Now there would be a lot of shop talk around that table, all about how to kill people who get in your way.” “So the question is, who is qualified to sit in the fifth chair at that poker game?” Well, we watched the rest of that episode of Alias and several more shows without coming up with an answer we were all happy with. So, Cindy decided that I should post all this on my blog and let whoever is bored enough to read this stuff offer an answer. We figure somebody as addicted to TV as we are will come up with a good fifth player. Any takers?